Village redevelopment gets a shot of cash

CARLSBAD -- The City Council this week gave the downtown Village
Redevelopment Agency a financial shot in the arm. The Carlsbad
council approved a financing plan that will allow the agency to
borrow up to $14.4 million from the city to help pay for more
parking and other downtown projects over the next five years.

Councilwoman Ramona Finnila said the new plan is a natural
extension of redevelopment work begun in the 1980s which included
major upgrades to portions of State Street, Carlsbad Village Drive
and Carlsbad Boulevard, purchase of public parking lots, and other
projects totaling to date about $20 million.

"There's a lot more ideas and a lot more things we wanted to
do," Finnila said. And "it's more than beautification. It's
economic stimulus (of private development) as well."

Councilmen Matt Hall and Mark Packard abstained from Tuesday's
3-0 vote because of potential conflicts of interest. Both own
property in the redevelopment zone that extends roughly from
Interstate 5 to the ocean and from the northern city limits to
Walnut Avenue on the south. The council serves as the commission
overseeing the downtown redevelopment agency created in 1981.

Top projects could include one or more multilevel parking
buildings to help relieve a long-standing problem in the Village
shopping area.

"Parking in the Village has been a hot topic since the 1970s,"
city Housing and Redevelopment Director Debbie Fountain said.

Under the financing plan, the agency can borrow the money as
needed for projects, and repay the loan plus interest by 2017 from
the agency's share of local property taxes.

State law enables the agency to collect a share of property
taxes from the defined area -- known as tax increment -- based on
the difference between property values at the time redevelopment
began and what they are today in the redevelopment zone. The theory
is that redevelopment projects help increase the value of all
property in the area.

According to a city staff report, the agency this fiscal year
will receive about $2.1 million, with the tax share increasing to
about $4 million per year by fiscal year 2012-13.

Fountain said the list of potential projects, totaling by some
estimates almost $37 million, will far exceed the money available
from the city, and that the staff will return to the council with a
suggested priority list some time early next year.

Lori Rosenstein, a management analyst with the redevelopment
agency, said the list includes three different parking building
projects.

One would be at State Street and Grand Avenue along with a small
park, retail shops and other businesses on the ground floor and
residential units on the second. Officials hope the parking
building could be built in partnership with the North County
Transit District on the transportation agency's property to serve
both the Coaster station and downtown.

Rosenstein said city and transit district officials have been
discussing the idea for a long time.

Another parking building could be built on existing city parking
lots on Roosevelt Street. The city would need to buy adjacent
private property to create what Rosenstein said could be a
multilevel parking structure with shops on three sides and housing
or offices on the top floor.

A third possibility would be a stand-alone parking building
somewhere in the Village area. "We've determined, to have the
greatest benefit, (the building) should be within a quarter-mile of
the Coaster station," she said.

Councilwoman Ann Kulchin said parking has always been a
priority, but "the average person doesn't realize how expensive a
parking structure is."

Rosenstein said by the most recent estimates, a single parking
space when you take into account property costs, construction, and
maintenance over 30 years costs about $33,000.

But, said Kulchin, "we want to get people to the Village. We
want people to come, get out of their cars, and walk around."